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Roadrunner Records to release 30th anniversary box set

Roadrunner is celebrating more than 30 years of music with the release of a box set, XXX: Three Decades of Roadrunner Records, hitting the market October 1.

The set, to be released in America and abroad, is a pretty good summation of the label’s beginnings as an underground label, their rise to one of America’s premier metal labels, and the gold and platinum success they’ve gone on to achieve since their humble beginnings. The label, started in the Netherlands in 1980, had the initial goals of importing music from American metal bands to Europe. The group’s stretch would later expand internationally with a client roster represented below.

The four discs are separated more or less chronologically, with the likes of Mercyful Fate, Life of Agony and Cynic (what, no Exhorder?), then moves on to bands like Sepultura, Machine Head and Fear Factory, and their current roster. The fourth disc is more rock-oriented, signaling the shift that the label has undergone via the likes of Nickelback and Lynyrd Skynyrd. The comp also includes several bands that weren’t on Roadrunner in the States, like Heaven and Hell and Down.

While Roadrunner has gone through some managerial changes in recent months, along with various layoffs, this compilation is a worthy audio document of one of metal’s best-known labels through their birth, growth, and as some purists would probably argue, their decline. Even the most devout metal fan would have to admit that Roadrunner has been a core metal label that’s hosted some of the best bands in metal throughout its history.

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